The Inquiry Design Model (IDM) is a distinctive approach to creating curriculum and instructional materials that honors teachers’ knowledge and expertise, avoids overprescription, and focuses on the main elements of the instructional design process as envisioned in the Inquiry Arc of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards (2013). Unique to the IDM is the blueprint, a one-page representation of the questions, tasks, and sources that define a curricular inquiry.
Inquiry Design Model (IDM) in Print
To learn more about IDM, please see the following publications.
Our first IDM book presents a conceptual base for shaping the classroom experience through inquiry-based teaching and learning. Using their Inquiry Design Model (IDM), Grant, Swan & Lee provide a detailed account of inquiry’s scholarly roots, as well as the rationale for viewing questions, tasks, and sources as inquiry’s foundational elements.
The second IDM book will walk readers through the process of designing an inquiry. Organized into three clear design phases (Framing, Filling, and Finishing an Inquiry), the Swan, Lee & Grant break down the components of the IDM blueprint and teach others how to create intellectually engaging and thoughtful inquiries. Foreword by Walter Parker.
The Inquiry Design Model was developed in response to the C3 Framework as a way put the type of inquiry called for in the C3 into action. For more background on IDM, be sure to read this 2015 Social Education article by Swan, Lee, and Grant, 2015 – The New York State Toolkit and the Inquiry Design Model: Anatomy of an Inquiry.
This collection of six instructional modules emerged from our initial work on IDM. The modules integrate skills from the Common Core and C3 Framework indicators into social studies instruction. Each module features inquiry and historical sources from the Library of Congress. The instructional ideas in these modules follow the Literacy Design Collaborative task-based approach. C3 Teachers collaborated with North Carolina State University, with support from the Teaching with Primary Sources Regional Program to produce these modules.
The Inquiry Design Model is a unique approach to creating instructional materials that avoids over-prescription by highlighting key elements, offering pedagogical suggestions, and relying on teacher expertise and experience.
The Inquiry Design Model (IDM) is a distinctive approach to creating curriculum and instructional materials that honors teachers’ knowledge and expertise, avoids over-prescription, and focuses on the central elements of the instructional design process as envisioned in the Inquiry Arc of the C3 Framework.
As an instructional framework, IDM builds out from the C3 Inquiry Arc through: a) compelling and supporting questions that frame and give structure to the inquiry (Dimension 1); b) summative, formative, and additional performance tasks that provide the opportunities for communicating conclusions (Dimension 4); and c) disciplinary sources that allow students to explore the compelling question, build content expertise, and develop the disciplinary skills to successfully support and defend their ideas (Dimensions 2 & 3). Unique to the IDM is the blueprint, a one-page representation of the questions, tasks, and sources that define a curricular inquiry.
IDM is rooted in 10 conceptual principles, based in research and practice that align with the ambitions of the C3 Framework and speak to the conceptual and pedagogical coherence of the Inquiry Design Model. These ten principles are summarized in this brief.